Reading Clues
By Silvia E. Hines

I email my daughter in medical school in Chicago the minute I see the newspaper story about Susan Simpson’s death from poisoning. My children grew up with her children down the block: Big-Wheeled the same streets, scaled the same trees, probably shoplifted the same minimarts. Rebecca calls me at once and insists I read the article over the phone.

“A Springdale woman was found dead in her home of apparent poisoning Sunday evening,” I read. “Preliminary reports indicate Susan Simpson, 58, ingested a lethal dose of a substance, possibly coming from one of several pill bottles found at her home. Her son Robert, 30, said he
became suspicious when his mother didn’t answer the phone Sunday morning and used his key to enter the home. A younger son, Cory, 28, couldn’t be reached. According to Robert, Cory moved recently from his mother’s house and is residing in another state. Toxicology screens
haven’t been completed, and police have not ruled out homicide. Simpson told this reporter his mother had no enemies.”

“No enemies, hah!” Rebecca says emphatically. “Bobby himself hated her, you know. I’ll never forget how furious he was when his mother let the school take him out of first grade and put him in that special ed class for his dyslexia!”

“So he killed her twenty-five years later?”

“I didn’t say that, Mom. But it’s possible. These things fester.”
Next, I phone my technophobe son David at his ashram in Albuquerque.

“You know,” he says, “everyone in the neighborhood talked about Bobby because of his learning disability, but Cory was the real problem. He was a little thief. I never told you this, but it was Cory who stole that statue from the Lawrence’s sculpture garden.”

“And how do you know about that?”

“That’s not the point, Mom. Try to focus. The woman couldn’t control either of the boys after their father left. I really think there’s potential there.”

Later that day, the police come knocking, followed by my neighbor, Carla.

“Did you talk to the cops?” she asks. “I told them what a jerk the boys’ father was. Remember when he threw Susan’s cat out in the street?”

“So you’re saying he did it?”

“No, I just thought they should know. I think she had terminal cancer.”

“Oh, you think she overdosed on purpose?”

“I saw her several times going into the high-rise on Center Street, the one across the street from the library. I checked, and there’s an oncology practice in the building.”

Rebecca emails me later that evening. “So what do you think happened, Mom?”

I reply with Carla’s cancer theory. Rebecca phones at 11 pm, my time.
“Mom, the high-rise has lots of other offices in it. The city’s adult basic education program is there. Remember, I tutored there in high school?”

My call waiting beeps, and it’s her brother. Don’t either of them know about time zones? I click on conference call and rest my head on my pillow while the two of them deconstruct neighborhood history for sinister events. I perk up when I hear David telling Rebecca about an incident at the Simpson house when Bobby brought home a note from his teacher.

“I was in their den playing Nintendo,” David says, “and I heard Susan tell Cory to read Bobby’s note, as though he was the father and somehow responsible for his older brother! She insisted he read it right away.”

Rebecca questions the reliability of David’s memory, and he questions her basic motives, just like old times. To distract them, as I used to do, I ask the first question that comes to mind. “Do either of you know what causes dyslexia?”

Rebecca answers quickly. “There’s a large hereditary component.”

“What if the label on the pill bottle was misread?” I ask. “And the wrong drug or dosage was taken?”

“It was Bobby who couldn’t read,” David starts, but he quickly stops.

“So maybe Susan couldn’t read either?” Rebecca’s words give me a chill.

“And she used to get Cory to read for her, but he moved away,” David chimes in.

“So she starts adult ed classes to finally work on her reading.” Rebecca softly offers.

“But the pharmacist on Elm insists on giving generic drugs, with those long, hard-to-read names,” I add, my head now heavy on the pillow.

I close my eyes and am quickly in the halfway land between waking and sleep. I think my son is just a little boy, spitting streams from a water gun, saying in his sweet childhood voice, “Call the police tomorrow, Mom.” And my daughter is a teenager again, yelling at me through the phone extension upstairs: “Hang up the phone, Mom!” Finally, Susan appears, alive and well, refusing to take the birding book I tried to lend her all those years ago, which mystified me because she was an avid birdwatcher.

Silvia Hines worked as a freelance writer and editor for many years. She's published lots of medical, health, and feature articles; two short stories in Redbook Magazine; and most recently, an essay in Still Crazy. She's concentrating now on literary short stories and personal essays.​

* * * 

As Easy as Threading a Needle
By Samantha Knight

​Walter sits in his sturdy chair, gently rocking himself back and forth with his gray slipper on the hard-wood floor. Rain patters against the window on this dark afternoon, almost drowning out the ticking of the grandfather clock.
 
 
“Oh, sweetie, handling an iPhone for you would be about as easy as threading a needle.”
Her words are resonating in his head as he finishes his cross-word puzzle; his fingers drum on the arm of his chair.
“Don’t worry, dear, we will get you the fanciest flip phone they have. You will be the talk of the street; even Eugene doesn't have a cell-phone!” She had winked at him before securing her feathered fat on her neatly combed salt and pepper hair. “I will be back from bingo before dinner.” 
 
 
Walter suddenly stops rocking his chair. Eugene, that crusty loon? He grimaces in the thought of his arch-nemesis, the only other man on their street to own a restored vintage car—but a year older, to boot. Whether it’s competing for the high score in the community's weekly game of horseshoes, or playing over his accordion at Christmas parties with his—irritatingly charming—acoustic music, Eugene always seems to one-up Walter.
 
 
But just as she was getting into her car to drive to bingo, he darted out onto their front porch.
“But Stel, that old goat has a...a,” He was unable to remember what the device was called, so Walter waved his hands in front of him like it was a game of charades, to which Stella only nodded while rolling her eyes.
 
“An iPad?”
 
“Yes! And he can't help but show off the damn thing every chance he gets! He does cross-word puzzles on it, Stel, and here I am stuck in the seventeen-hundreds with a measly puzzle-book and pencil...”
Stella scoffed humorously at Walter's petty jealously, but his frown only grew.
 
Leaving the car door open, she walked back up the steps to him. “It's not even his, dear, it belongs to his wife,” she paused to cup her husband's red face in her delicate hands; her kind smile calmed his tense facial expression. “And the only thing he knows how to do on it is play his puzzles. So, don't worry so much, ya old grump.”
 
They both smiled, but Walters' followed with a long sigh of defeat.
“Well, it would still put Colonel Blimp into his place if I had an iPad phone.”
 
“'iPhone', you mean? And you'd end up breaking it before showing it off,” Stella giggled. “Best keep it simple,” she turned around to head back to her car. “Remember the resort we stayed at when we took that trip to the vineyards? We don’t want any repeats of that, do we?” Her faint eyebrows raised as her eyes fixed on his. “And that was just a computer…”
 
She had backed out of the driveway, but paused to roll down her window. “Like threading—”
“A needle,” they both finished simultaneously, Walter now rolling his eyes and Stella smiling contently before disappearing down the street.     
 
 
Oddly enough, he remembers all too well their stay at that resort—the wine, the fifty, the cigarette, and the doors.
 
 
They had arrived at the Okanagan Vineyards on their fortieth anniversary, and Walter wanted to plan their whole weekend, as opposed to Stella making all their arrangements—as she usually did for their trips over the years; this was mostly because she was comfortable using a computer, whereas her husband had the patience of a four-year-old.
 
“Modern technology is so futuristic,” she'd often remind him. However, “futuristic” was a very broad term to Walter, since even their own box-style television hadn’t been updated since the eighties.
 
It was late when he stumbled out of the resort pub, though he had only two glasses of the feature wine; it was the cobblestone floor that caused him fumble as he walked, he told himself.
 
“Oh bother, might as well be walking home from the bar on train tracks,” he mumbled incoherently as he regained his balance.
 
The young gentleman that worked the front desk had been on a coffee break, but Walter had recalled him explaining that they could also book their spots for the tours on the guest computers, which were conveniently situated in the lobby outside the pub entrance.
 
Needless to say, after another glass of the chardonnay—which he was forced to chug after unsuccessfully arguing with the pub bouncer over taking his glass back to his computer—several failed attempts to log in and burning a hole in the computer-chair upholstery while wrestling his cigarette back from the receptionist, Walter was escorted from the building while Stella paid for the room—and the various damages.
 
“If you had just accepted the young man’s help with the computer, you wouldn’t have frozen it and none of this would have happened!” She huffed as she toted her suitcase down the front steps.
 
Walter was still making a fuss, cussing and waving his hands through the air while standing just outside the lobby doors, which were indecisively opening and closing as he set off the sensors. 
“Didn't feel frozen to me, in fact, it was blowing hot air! Stupid thing just didn't work properly. And I don’t need no help from any smart-ass kid! It wouldn’t accept my fifty; I inserted it in the slot, but there were so many damn buttons!”
 
“It only takes credit, dear.” His wife sighed, staring up at him from the parking lot.
 
“Well, why in carnation do you have to pay to use the thing anyway? And—” His flailing had knocked his suitcase between the automatic doors, which were now firmly closed around it. “What in the hell is wrong with these doors!”
The scene was attracting quite the audience as Walter muttered curse words as he bent down to pull his luggage from the grip of the doors, but it wouldn’t budge.
 
“Sir,” the receptionist called tiredly from behind the front desk, “you’ve been setting off the sensors. Try stepping away and then stepping back onto the mat, they will open.”
 
“What now?” Walter replied through a sharp exhale, straightening up stiffly. But as he did so, the doors suddenly opened again, releasing their grip on the suitcase. Walter quickly—or as “quick” as his back would allow—bent down to pull it free, just as the doors closed shut on it once again.
Those that watched helplessly shook their heads; some tried to hide a smile by covering their mouth, while others simply stood with them drooping open, stunned. 
 
“Sir—” but the employee’s monotone words trailed off as he realized his advice would once again go unheeded, and the cycle continued. He buried his face in his hands as he watched Walter work relentlessly to pry the doors open and free his bag, his eyes flaming with purpose. The doors shuddered, but were ultimately unyielding.
 
After another long minute of hokey-pokey, the doors finally remained open. All went silent as Walter stood still, eying up the doors that seemed very much alive at this point, taunting him.
He took a few measured breaths with his hands on his hips, surveying the doors to ensure they had made up their mind and he would no longer be humiliated. Finally, he picked up his suitcase. He scoffed as he took one last glance at the motionless faces in the lobby, with his chin up high and his lips pursed like a toddler. As he turned to head down the steps into the parking lot, he nearly walked into his wife, who was standing right behind him, glaring. 
 
 
But that was a few years back, and since then, he had learned to set the timer on their Keurig machine—a feat he was proud to brag about to their friends. It was this, and their technologically-advanced grand-kids, that inspired Walter to prove to his wife that he could manage the latest cellphone. But whether it was his wife’s constant comparisons to needle-threading, or his stubbornly independent nature, he made the decision that day to mend his own shirt for the first time. He was, after all, a quick learner.
 
An old table fan rotates weakly and is rather unnecessary, as the temperature of the room is already chilly—it’s the comfort of thinking his cigarette smoke won’t be noticed that gives it its household purpose.
 
In the center of the living room there is a Persian-style area rug, which is also old and visibly tattered; it is frayed at all the corners.
Beside the brick fire place, in which a small fire burns a single piece of wood and crackles consistently, is his wife’s china cabinet. She is a collector, valuing small porcelain figurines on musical spools and a variety of antique crystal glasses. Walter, on the other hand, cherishes his expensive liquors, including the nineteen-seventy-six bourbon that he enjoys on special occasions— “special” occasions such as birthdays, holidays, and re-runs of I Dream of Genie. And on such occasions, he also enjoys a cigarette with his drink, but he never smokes inside—or at all— unless Stella isn’t home.
 
Walter removes the wool blanket from his knees, re-tightens his bath-robe, and shuffles over to the liquor cabinet, which is hand-carved and an heirloom from his grandfather. The whiskey he pours into one of his wife’s crystal glasses—which is never aloud, unless she isn’t there—is also old, perhaps not an heirloom, but it has aged nicely. It is smooth, and the bite non-existent as he takes the first glass down right away, before pouring another and heading back to his chair.
 
“You’re not supposed to drink any hard liquor,” Stella had instructed him the last time he poured a glass in front of her, “the doctor says eight glasses of water a day.”
“Bah! I was cracking beers with my Pa when he was born,” Walter had rebutted, “and the man has a hair-do like a damn cockatoo, we can’t trust his judgment.”
 
Pausing after he takes his seat again, he is distracted by the scene on the TV; a creatively-dressed woman with bright blue hair struts around a stage singing something he can’t understand. His cheeks wrinkle in confusion, or disgust, he’s not quite sure.        
After staring in bewilderment for a few moments, he shakes his head and, using the fire iron, pokes at the television set until he finally hits the silver ‘off’ button.
Walter gently turns the single nob on the antique record player and the scratchy sounds of Peggy Lee fill the room; it skips every so often, but the musicality is still there.
 
As he fidgets around to find a comfortable position in his rocking chair once again, Walter turns on the lamp that sits on his side table, illuminating a needle and a spool of thread.
He quickly locates the rip in his shirt armpit when his whole hand suddenly pokes through, and then cuts a fair length of the brown thread. But as the fan rotates back in his direction, it blows the thread onto the floor, camouflaging it from sight.
 
After examining the hardwood until his eyes hurt from squinting, he finally spots the bugger and, with the hand that’s still caught through the hole of his shirt, leans over to grab the thread. When he hears the ripping sound it is too late to notice that he was sitting on the rest of his shirt when he had leaned over, beyond what the fabric would allow.
 
He scoffs at the garment, snarling at the, now gaping, hole in the armpit. Shaking his head, Walter turns his attention to the next step. His breathing slows as he attempts to grasp the fine needle off the table, but his fingers are too fat.
 
“Damn sausage fingers,” he grunts under his breath.
 
In his deep focus, his tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth, tickled by his gray mustache as he presses one end of the needle into the table with his long thumb nail. The other end of the needle—the sharp end—rises and is now graspable. But as Walter quickly goes to grab it, he instead pricks his thumb and winces in pain, shaking his hand about.
The needle is again flat on the wooden table. Taking in a few deep breaths, he attempts again, but this time, he smiles as he pushes the sharp end into the table instead. This works, and he holds up his success. 
 
He brings the needle increasingly closer to his souring face. “Where’s the dang hole?” he mumbles, though only his mustache moves when he does.
When he finally finds it, he is dismayed to discover how small it really is. He sighs and attempts his first threading, which fails. As he tries a second time, the string loosens from his grip and plummets into the heap of blankets on his lap.
 
“Fiddlesticks!”
 
Though his eyes hurt from squinting, he finally recovers the string—again— and sets it on the table underneath the weight of the spool. He then gets up and begins rummaging through the drawers of the bureau.
Nestling back in his chair, Walter struggles with his flimsy glasses before finally getting them on the bridge of his crooked nose.
 
On the side table, the string is there, but now the needle is nowhere to be seen. Though he’s thankful for no prickly pain in his bottom side, Walter grinds his dentures in frustration and begins examining his lap and the floor around the chair. Nothing.
 
“Jeez Louise!”
 
Despite his attempt to stand carefully—so to catch the location of the needle if it falls—Walter fumbles, losing his balance and nearly tipping over sideways. Regaining his stance, he adjusts his glasses and shakes out the blanket. Nothing. He closely examines the chair. Nothing.
 
“Where is that darn thing?” his deep voice cracks from a dry throat, which he moistens with a sip of whiskey.
 
Pausing to scratch his head, which leaves his gray hair sticking up, he sighs bitterly before getting on his hands and knees to check under the chair and table. Still no sign of the needle, but a few unknown joints crack as he wrestles with himself to get back up.
 
After thinking for a moment, he rushes over to his wife’s china cabinet and rustles in a drawer, causing various papers and photos to fall onto the ground in his haste. He opens the other drawers, and makes a further mess. When Walter comes to the final drawer, he opens it and reluctantly continues searching for another needle, tossing objects out of it and about the room.
 
Batteries roll around before stopping at the edge of the rug, papers blow from the fan before settling, and photos scatter into the next room; something hits the record player and the song skips over and over.  He finally realizes that he’s just going to have to find that needle, and so he takes a gulp of his whiskey straight from the bottle and grunts loudly as it goes down.
 
Slamming the last cabinet drawer shut in frustration, a small porcelain figurine falls from the shelf and smashes into three large pieces on the floor at his feet.
Walter stares at it in disbelief, mouth wide open. He finally gasps as he bends down to examine the damage.
 
“Stella will notice this…” the terrifying thought is visible on his face.
 
The maiden’s torso and arms are intact, but her head and the musical spool are dismembered, with a couple tiny shards among them. He pokes at the head, which roles in a circle and, once settled, seems to stare up at him.
 
“Don’t look at me like that, you pesky little-” he grunts under his breath at it as he picks it up, followed by the other pieces, and sets them atop the cabinet. Walter glances around the living room. So much for threading a needle, he thinks. Now what am I supposed to do?
 
The grandfather clock dongs its nineteenth hour, she will be home soon! Walter begins to panic—both his hands rest atop his head as he begins pacing back and forth.
He always told himself he wasn’t afraid of his wife, after all, he’d known her for sixty years, but when it came to her things and what she had specifically told him, he was at least nervous—if not truly afraid.
 
In unrealistic optimism, he attempts to repair the poor figurine by holding the pieces together as they once were--would it be enough to will it together?  But to his dismay, even at the expected result, the pieces return to their separated state once he lets them go. How to hold them together?
 
Walter glances up at the spot on the top shelf of the china cabinet where she stood for many years, untouched. Walter blows away the small circle of dust that formed around the base of the musical spool. No, that won’t do, she will still notice.
 
Walter re-arranges the other five figurines on the shelf, sighing tiredly as he does. He observes their new formation, then shakes his head in disapproval and tries again. After re-arranging them once more, he is again dissatisfied. No, she will notice that too. The damn perfectionist!
So he arranges the figurines back into their original positions—this takes him a few tries to get right.
 
Perplexed, Walter walks briskly back over to his side table, swigs his whiskey, pushes up his sleeves and kicks off his slippers.
He lines the base of the porcelain head with some old super glue he came across in the cabinet, and then holds it on the torso.
With a little luck, and a man’s handiness…he begins to feel confident. But when he carefully releases the torso after a few seconds, he notices that the head is glued on backwards.
 
“Maybe if…” his words are muffled under his moustache as he places the disfiguration in the middle of the other figurines. He steps back, squints at the unsightly repair, then snorts as he wipes the sweat from his brow. “Bah! That won’t do either!”
Walter exhales sharply, grasps the figurine again and yanks the head off, getting the tacky glue on his fingers.
 
Now sweating profusely, he again glances at the clock; Stella will be home any minute, and not only is the needle lost and the house a mess, but her priceless antique figurine is broken.
He attempts to re-seal the head to the torso, in the right direction, but when he pulls his fingers away the head is now glued to his thumb instead.
 
“Son of a—!”
 
Walter frowns as he tries to detach the porcelain head from his thumb, gently enough not to break it, but hard enough that it pulls his hair and skin. 
 
“Blasted!” He lets go, but the head is still firmly glued to his thumb.
 
His frustration builds. Another swig—or three—right from the bottle is no solution, but it takes the edge off as he is now feeling the warmth of the liquor.
The looming sound of a car door slamming and his wife’s heals clicking up the drive-way cripples his wit. In his impulsive and desperate state, Walter forgets about the finger-head and instead places a small bowling trophy among the other figurines. A temporary solution, at best.
 
The needle! he recalls again, now feeling more overwhelmed than ever and nearly slipping on the loose batteries on the floor.
 
The grandfather clock seems to tick louder now, and the smell of burning is in the air. Noticing this, Walter stops his train of thought and looks around the room for the culprit; one of the papers that had fallen out of a drawer earlier had blown into the hearth and now smokes in the embers.
He hurriedly slips back into his slippers and steps on the paper, which crumbles into smoking ash. Walter then splashes the remaining sip of whiskey from his glass onto the still-glowing ashes, which hits some of the coals and causes the mess to hiss and bellow out a bigger puff of smoke.
 
He jumps when the sudden high-pitched sound of the smoke alarm goes off. Walter gasps and darts in the direction of the kitchen to turn it off. But when his slipper escapes his gait, he tumbles down into a home-run slide on the hard-wood floor, his hands stretched out before him. The harmless slide is quickly forgotten as his attention is diverted; the dooming arrival that he was expecting had come without his preparation, his inevitable fate: She’s home!
 
Scrambling to his feet, Walter grips the edge of his bureau for support, and comes face to face with his nemesis.
 
“You!” his voice is deep and raspy, and his blue eyes widen.
 
There it is, the needle, sitting so innocently atop the bureau where he had unnoticingly left it when searching for his glasses earlier—he often forgot little things daily, but usually it was just his glasses on top his head.
 
He glares with a furrowed brow, briefly forgetting the inevitable confrontation that awaits him. “This is all your fault!” he scowls at the inanimate object while still leaning on the bureau.
 
“Who’s fault?”
 
He spins around to face his wife, completely bewildered and disheveled from his chaos; his hair is swept in every direction, robe wide open—leaving nothing to the imagination—with beads of sweat dripping into his beard, and of course, he’s missing a slipper.
 
Stella is speechless and frozen in the door way. She drops her purse onto the floor. The smoke alarm finally turns off on its own, as if it, too, were afraid of the situation.
The ceiling is engulfed in a smoky haze, while glass, papers, and photos litter the floor, and the record hiccups the same three words.
 
“What in God’s name…” her mouth is gaping as she glances around the destroyed room until her eyes fix on her beloved figurine’s head, which is still glued to his fat thumb.
 
“Oh, hi Dear... I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, I was just-” Walter stutters, but quickly realizes that this charade won’t fly, and he sighs heavily. “Oh for goodness sake, it’s not what it looks like, Stel!” he admits, hastily re-tying his robe. “I was just trying to thread a needle when—”
 
“Just threading a needle?” Stella repeats bleakly, taking a step further into the disaster. Her frustration begins to show as her face hardens and her eyes blink a few times as she tries to comprehend the situation.
 
Walter is horrified, breathing heavily. He finally shrugs his shoulders and forces a meek smile.
“Well, on the bright side, you were right,” he reassures humbly before reaching behind him to pick up the needle with his good hand. “Here’s your needle back.” He takes a careful step towards her, holding it out. “I will just let you take care of the mending from now on. Okay?”
 
But Stella doesn’t move, nor does she look at her husband.
 
“Hunny?” His breath reeks of liquor.
 
She still doesn’t say a word, but her cherry-red lips quiver as she finally notices the rest of her broken figurine that he forgot about on the cabinet. Walter also glances at it with his frozen half-smile, and his ribcage sinks into his spine.
 
“Is that my limited-edition milk-maiden figurine in pieces?” her flaring eyes pan back towards his hand. “You glued her head to your thumb?!”
 
Despite everything, he’s still caught off guard, with no possible excuse within the realm of believability. Impulsively, Walter quickly swings his hand—and the porcelain head—behind his back in a fruitless attempt to hide his mistake. But his thumb collides with the bureau behind him and the maiden’s head shatters into several shards.
 
After a brief, and tense, silence, he replies coyly, “not anymore…” Walter’s grin slowly fades into a truly petrified expression.
 
But, it was this unyielding ambition and adorable stubbornness that made her fall in love with this oaf in the first place, Stella reminds herself.
 
“Perhaps I don’t need an iPhone after all…”

Samantha graduated from the English program at UBC, Okanagan, in 2014. She is now also a group fitness instructor in Alberta, and she and her husband are expecting their first child. This publication is her sixth achievement in her writing career thus far, and she hopes to become a published novelist.

* * * 

Belmont River
By Geordie Little 

Davis sucked hard on a cigarette, crushing the filter between his thumb and forefinger. From the passenger seat, Kayla’s hoarse, high pitched voice cut through the drone of the radio and the hum of the road.
 
“Baby I love this song, you want to turn it up?”
 
Davis obliged, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray underneath the radio. His fingers felt sweaty with nicotine.
 
I’m broke but I’m happy, I’m poor but I’m kind…
 
“I thought you only listened to country?”
 
Kayla looked over at him.
 
“This is country, isn’t it?”
 
“S’pose so.”
 
I’m lost but I’m hopeful, baaaaby…
 
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and the white lines on the road rushed past in a blur. Kayla was singing.
 
“And what it all comes down to, is that everything’s gonna be fine, fine fine…”
 
Davis concentrated on the sound of the engine. Did his cam shaft belt need to be realigned? He cracked the window to hear better. Cold air rushed into the truck.
 
“Cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket…”
 
“Baby, you want to be quiet for a second?”
 
“…And the other one’s giving a high five!”
 
The engine was definitely making a rattling noise. Davis’ phone was buzzing in his pocket, and he took it out and glanced at the screen. Jessica calling. He pushed the old Nokia back into his jeans.
 
“Kayla.”
 
“Yeah?”
 
“You want to be quiet for a second?”
 
She folded her arms and slumped back in the seat.
 
“We’re nearly there anyway, you can run the damn truck once you drop me off.”
 
Davis turned the radio off and they both sat in silence, listening to the engine whine and rattle as they rounded the corner of Fayette and Sherwood. Davis shifted down through the gears and came to a stop outside Lin’s Kitchen. He could smell eggs.
 
“You going to come in?” said Kayla.
 
“S’pose I might. Fix me a coffee. Gonna run the truck a little.”
 
She swung open the door and stepped out onto the icy pavement, holding her jacket shut with her arms crossed across her body.
 
“Aight baby. Don’t leave me in there making a coffee for nobody y’hear?”
 
She turned away and walked into the diner, and Davis pulled the key out of the ignition. He leaned back and stared at the sagging roof liner of the truck. It had a foot-long tear, reaching from the corner of the windscreen to just above the driver’s seat, and David could see the peeling adhesive underneath. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. One new voicemail. Turning his head to look out the window, he brought the phone to his ear.
 
Hello Davis. I don’t know if you’re going to listen to this, I don’t know if this is even still your number, but Christmas is coming soon. I suppose you must know that.
 
The sun was starting to rise over the elementary school across the road, and the playground equipment cast a long shadow through the wire fence and onto the sidewalk. Jessica’s voice sounded thin through the cheap phone.
 
The Dumonts will be coming down, and Aunt Loretta. I know you didn’t come last time, but it has been two years now. Mother misses you. I miss you too Davis. Just think about it.
 
The phone clicked, and Davis put it back in his pocket. Somewhere in town, a dog started barking.
 
-
 
The floor of Lin’s Kitchen was off-white linoleum, stretching from the kitchen past the counter and out underneath the dining booths, with their red and white synthetic leather and sticky, coffee stained table tops.
 
The heat hit him as soon as he walked through the door, and Davis took off his woolen flannel jacket. He could hear oil hissing and bubbling in the kitchen, and the bare light tubes on the ceiling buzzed like trapped insects.
 
Davis chose a seat near the door and after a minute Kayla came out of the kitchen and joined him, carrying two cups of black coffee.
 
“So, does it sound alright?” she said, pulling her dark blonde hair back into a ponytail.
 
“What?”
 
“The truck. Does it sound alright?”

“Oh, right. No, I reckon I’ll probably have to take it by
Donny’s. Get him to have a look at it.”
 
“Aight. You gonna do that on the weekend?”
 
“S’pose I might.” Davis looked down at his boots. They had mud caked around the soles and underneath the laces. The leather at the front was worn down on both feet, and the dull, scratched steel was showing through. “I better take this to go,” he said. “Gonna be late soon.”
 
-
 
Driving to the site took Davis away from the shops, past most of the houses and into the frontiers of the town, where the wooden skeletons of new homes stood tall in bare paddocks and let the frozen wind blow through them. The clear blue light of the morning was beginning to give way to warmer tones, and Davis knew that he had to be at least twenty minutes late.
 
He turned down Raymond Street, where he was working on the construction of some apartments, and kept driving until he saw them disappear in his rear-view mirror. He drove until he saw a blue neon Bud Light sign on a red brick building.
 
It was quiet inside, too early for all but a few regular drinkers. A man in khaki work pants and a thick jacket leaned on the bar, drinking quickly and glancing at the clock. Another man sat slumped in the farthest corner, asleep, with three empty bottles on the table in front of him. Davis made his way to the end of the bar, far from anybody else.
 
“You after a drink?” said the bartender. She had deep crow’s feet and grey streaks through her hair.
 
“I am. Heineken.”
 
“Yuh-huh.”
 
“Yep.”
 
Davis’ phone vibrated in his pocket. He let it ring out and drank his beer slowly. The man in the work pants left the bar and others began to shuffle in. They were mostly older, and they said nothing to each other as they took their seats. The bartender poured their drinks without asking what they wanted.
 
Davis finished his beer, then another, then he took out his phone. One new voicemail. He held it to his ear. Jessica was crying.
 
Davis, I… Did I do something? Are you upset with me? Why can’t you just tell us where you are?
 
He breathed in sharply, and signaled for another drink.
 
We just want to know where you are, that’s all we want. Are you okay? Mother can’t even say your name. She won’t watch the news because she thinks she’ll see you on it, washed up on a beach somewhere. Please. Please, answer the phone. Nobody cares what you did any more.
 
The bartender was staring at him.
 
“You look a little shook up hun,” she said.
 
“Mhmm.”
 
“Here.” She handed him his beer. “This’ll sort you out better than talking to me would,” she said, then turned and disappeared into the back of the bar.
 
-
 
Five hours later Davis stepped outside, narrowing his eyes against the bright light. His body felt heavy and he was walking in bursts, three or four steps at a time, his legs crossing over in front of each other. He took his keys out of his pocket and stabbed at the door of the truck, scratching sky blue paint off pale steel. He did this five times, then took the keys into the palm of his hand and slammed them into the door, hard, leaving a dent above the handle.
 
Across the road, a woman walking her dog stopped and looked at Davis, shaking her head. He spat on the ground and shouted at her.
 
“Fuck you, white trash bitch. Take your fucking dog and keep walking.”
 
She hurried away, leaving Davis alone outside the bar. He stumbled down the street, to where the pavement ran down into yellowish grass and he could hear water.
 
The McAllister River ran through the eastern side of the town, from the Van Lier Resources power plant and past the new housing districts, before eventually running into the Maillard-Luireau Estuary and the ocean beyond that.
 
Davis propped himself up against a tree and watched the silty, brown water run over sodden logs and debris. A five-gallon plastic container was half buried in the bank in front of him, filled with stagnant water and new life.
 
He closed his eyes and listened to the river and the dogs barking in the distance.
 
-
 
The sun was setting when Davis parked his truck outside Lin’s Kitchen, and Kayla was already waiting for him.
 
“What took you? I been finished for half an hour,” she said as she climbed in. The hair was falling out of her ponytail, and there were bags under her eyes.
 
“Worked late,” he said.
 
“You been drinking? You stink like beer.”
 
“Had one after I finished.” Davis turned to Kayla. She was silent, waiting for him to apologize. He shifted the truck into first and pulled out onto the road. She turned the radio up loud and looked out the window, her forehead resting against the glass.
 
They were living in a unit behind Kayla’s parents’ house. It was a small weatherboard building with a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. They slept on a fold out sofa, and if Kayla brought her friends around they would fold it up and watch TV together in the bedroom. Usually Davis would walk around to the bar.
 
Kayla got out of the truck as soon as it was stopped, and walked inside without saying a word. Davis followed her, slowly, taking off his jacket as he did. He stopped for a moment to look at the sky. When he got inside she was sitting on the bed with the TV on.
 
“I didn’t mean to be late,” he said, not apologizing.
 
“Don’t much matter what you meant,” she said.
 
He nodded in agreement. “S’pose not. You mind if I come up on there?”
 
“Free country.”
 
He climbed up next to her and put his arm around her and they watched TV together until she fell asleep. Jimmy Kimmel was interviewing a man in a black suit with a white cowboy hat resting on his knees. He had a short white beard and a weathered, sun damaged face.
 
And did you expect to have this kind of success? People are saying, you know, “this is a really great album. This is the kind of album we haven’t heard come out of Nashville in years.” Are you surprised by that?
 
Well, of course, I, uh- It’s been a very humbling experience. You know, I’ve been making music for twenty-five years now, and-
 
Sure.
 
And to finally have people taking notice is-
 
You didn’t expect it.
 
No.
 
See, that’s what people like about you! You’re real, you’re authentic. You’re just a country boy making country music, right?
 
Well, uh, yes, I suppose so.
 
The man shifted in his seat, and wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his suit jacket. He looked up at the stage lights, and the camera operators and the crowd. Davis switched off the TV.
 
He got out of the bed, picked up his jacket off the kitchen counter and put it on, then stepped outside into the backyard of Kayla’s parents’ house.
 
The grass was wet, and Davis stood still for a while in the moonlight and listened to the dogs bark. He felt in his pocket for the keys to the truck.
 
-
 
Davis drove all night, and when the sun rose it illuminated a world of rolling hills and rich, green grass. His eyes were heavy but he kept driving, listening to the rattling of his engine and the silence from the radio. He lit his last cigarette, and then scrunched up the pack and threw it into the passenger seat footwell.
 
Over the crest of a hill, a house came into a view. It was colossal, three stories and an attic, a boat house on a river and a two-mile driveway buried in oak and willow. Davis turned into the driveway and looked out through the trees to Belmont River in the distance.
 
Its wide, crystalline body wound around the house and alongside the driveway, bordered by reeds on both sides. The water moved through it too slowly to make a sound, crawling towards its eventual destination, 900 miles away, through the McAllister River, past the Van Lier Resources power plant and into the Maillard-Luireau Estuary.
 
Davis stubbed out his cigarette and pulled up his truck outside the enormous house. He couldn’t hear anybody moving inside and he wondered if they were all lying in bed, shaken awake by the whining and rattling of his dying engine.
 
He took off his work boots on the veranda and stood them neatly against the wall, and then he opened the door and let himself in.

Geordie Little is a journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. He spent some time living in Anchorage, Alaska, where he found his feet as a fiction writer. He is previously unpublished.

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Even in the Dark
By Calder G. Lorenz

Scarlet was driving around town, feeling a little lost about things, on her way to another restaurant gig (she’d been doing day after day, shift after shift, her sense of time now a hair-clogged drain), when Jeanie said to her: “If we keep this up, we’re never going to get anywhere that’s worth getting to.”

Scarlet thought: I feel like Jeanie is never right about anything, but this time she is right.

In that moment, she understood where she was. She saw the signs. She recognized the park and the long dense patches of mulberry bushes. How long had it been since she’d been there? She stopped the car. She parked. She said to Jeanie, “We should take a walk here.”

Jeanie hesitated. She wasn’t one for abrupt transitions. She needed pauses and explanations and plans heaped on top of plans. She looked around to see where they were. She didn’t know this part of Washington, D.C. She wondered if maybe she was a contestant of some kind or maybe she was on a hidden camera thing or a guest on some afternoon airing television show that surprised folks with silly little excursions. She watched as Scarlet turned off her phone and then put it in the glove box. Jeanie decided to gather her jacket and then touch the corners of her eyes and then pucker her lips in the mirror. She said, “I take it this means we’ll be scrimping again this month.”

Scarlet tossed her apron in the backseat. She inventoried the car for anything worth stealing and then she got out. She drummed on the roof of the car. She said, “Those bums at work won’t even notice I’m gone. That place is a revolving door to nowhere.”

Jeanie asked, “Where are we? Is it dangerous?” She curled her lips.

And Scarlet said, “Do you have to ask that everywhere we go? We’re up the hill from the National Zoo.” She said, “My dad used to take me here.” She said, “We lived right up the street past those trees.”

Scarlet pointed at a tree-lined park. There were blankets and baskets out and music was drifting from devices. A hunched man pushed his cart up the hill.

“You lived in the park?” Jeanie asked. She crumpled her face. She shook her shoulders.

Scarlet went over and took her hand. She closed her eyes and then took a deep breath. She said, “Jeanie, no, we lived in an apartment up the street.”

Jeanie pulled her hand away. She said, “Yeah, I get it.” She said, “I don’t like this sidewalk.” She said, “It’s too steep for me.”

Scarlet dismissed Jeanie and soon they started down. Scarlet said, “Take off those stupid shoes.”

Jeanie started to protest but then she almost toppled into Scarlet. She held out her hands for balance. She grabbed onto her roommate’s shoulder and then she relented. She pulled off her heels.

They walked along the path and she swung the shoes.

Jeanie said, “I don’t know about this town. When I get money I’m going back to where I can buy something with nothing.”

Scarlet laughed at that.

Jeanie laughed at that.

They pushed at each other.

Scarlet said, “I’m not leaving here until I’m President.”

“Not sure if you’ve heard the news, but there’s no such thing as a woman president.”

“But there will be.”

“But not yet.”

“There will be.”

Jeanie shook her head. “They’ll never let it happen.” She pulled back her hair and then let it drop. She said, “I hate talking politics with you. You’re too literal.”

Scarlet ignored her roommate and went to where the sidewalk stopped, to where there was a railing, to where the bushes began. They could see out over the zoo. They could see the tall iron entrance gate and the houses and some of the concrete pits where the animals lived. The area was all trees and fences and banners. The area was green and fortified in a way that didn’t look at all enclosed. Scarlet thought that it looked like something that would be called, urban lush.

Scarlet leaned into the bushes and started picking berries. She ate one and then another. She held out her hand to Jeanie. She said, “Eat a mulberry with me.”

“They’ll turn you purple.”

“Only on the inside.” Scarlet said. 

Jeanie said, “They look like raspberries on steroids.”

Scarlet ate another. And then she realized that her fingertips were stained purple from the berry. She picked a handful more and then rolled the berries in her hands. She let the juice go into her skin. She ate another. She said, “When I would walk here with my father, he’d let me do whatever I wanted. Mainly, we ate berries and talked about where we wanted to go in the world but sometimes we’d walk down to the zoo and sneak in after it was closed.”

Jeanie was frowning at Scarlet’s purple palms and discolored fingers. She checked her jacket for a napkin. While she searched she asked, “Is that what we’re doing? Are we going to sneak into the zoo?” She held out the napkin.

Scarlet said, “Only if it’s closed.” She didn’t wipe her hands. She took it and then wrapped the berries Jeanie had refused. She tossed the really damaged ones back into the bushes.

When they arrived there, the gates to the zoo were locked. The entry box where the tickets were sold was empty. A woman passed with a stroller. The light sank into the trees. There was the sound of animals deep in the park but it was quieted by the space and distance. Scarlet opened her arms. She posed and dipped her hips and leaned against the gate. She said, “This part is the hard part. After, we walk with the animals. After, we will be able to stroll as we are meant to stroll. There will be no lines. No families tripping over themselves. No waiting.”

Jeanie was staring up at the top of the gate. Fireflies drifted around her and she waved them away from her face, from her hair, from her shoulders. She said, “What do I do with my jacket.”

Scarlet took it from her and then put it on. “Problem solved,” she said. She took a step back and then grabbed the bars. She pulled herself up and then up higher and then up higher. She used her feet to keep her moving. She was running out of strength in her hands and arms but she was able to swing herself over the top and then slowly she eased down until she jumped to the concrete.

Jeanie was busy shooing the bugs. She said, “I am not doing that.”

Scarlet was breathing heavy and had her hands on her hips. She said, “It wasn’t so bad.”

Jeanie said, “You go to a climbing gym. You competed in gymnastics. You are like a spider person. I drink white wine and run around a fake lake sometimes.”

Jeanie touched the bars. She shook her head. She said, “I’ll wait until you’re done.”

Scarlet took in the situation. She eyed Jeanie. Measured her. She said, “Get on the ground and slide under.”

“Where?”

“The gate. You’re little all over.”

“I’m little where the good lord said.”

“Well, maybe, but when I was little, my father went over the top and I squeezed through under the gate. All you need to do, is breath out all your air and I’ll help pull you through it.”

Jeanie swatted at her legs. She tussled her hair. She looked around only to find more mosquitoes and fireflies. She stomped her foot.

Scarlet said, “It’s nice and breezy over here. Less bugs.”

Jeanie said, “I’ve got to finish an application tonight.” She said, “I want a real job. A real life.” She asked, “Will you help me go over it when we get back?”

“That sounds like something I can do for you.”

Jeanie huffed. She let out a little wail. She got down on the ground and then she exhaled.

She wiggled and Scarlet pulled and soon Jeanie scraped and crawled on through.

They stood at the main path. Jeanie had hair everywhere. Strands were plastered to her cheek and her forehead. She had little bloody scrapes on her knees and on her elbows.

Scarlet took some water into her hands from the water fountain. She applied it to the worst spots and it was then that she thought that Jeanie looked like she might need to give up. But after a moment, she seemed in a better space and so they followed a sign that promised to show them big cats and wolves and species that were more comfortable with the night. 

There were only small yellow security lights lighting the walkways. The trees had become canopies of darkness and blackened, blocked shapes. There was the off and on howl of the monkeys. The songs and cries of the birds. The long humble wail of something unknown to them.

Scarlet whispered, “Jaguars only like to walk around at night.”

And Jeanie said, “But they’re in a cage or something.”

Scarlet took her hand. She whispered, “Don’t worry, we probably won’t even see anything.”

They walked past the locked doors of the reptile house and past the plastic picnic tables and over a small wooden bridge and then they were at a large enclosure. 

They approached slowly, with small steps and hushed breathing between the two of them.

They stood in front of the informational sign. Jeanie followed the words with her finger. There were large lettered facts about how many remained, what was killing them, where they most liked to live and sleep and walk in trees. It was difficult to see inside the space. It was difficult to see much of anything. There were outlines. Rocks. A tree. A rope attached to a tire. It was a silent place to be.

Scarlet took out the napkin. She opened it. She ate a berry. She held it out to share. Jeanie took it and carefully settled it in her mouth. They took another and another. They ate what remained and then Jeanie went about trying to clean her fingers. She sighed. She held up her hands close to Scarlet. The napkin was useless. Even in the dark, the juice was visible on her skin.

Jeanie decided to protest, she wanted to know where they could go to fix this problem, but before she got it out, there was a loud sound. It was animal. But it was a human-animal. It was a cough; someone was out there coughing and walking and on the way there. They both crouched down. They crawled under the bars and to the front of the enclosure. They sat between the plants there. They grew very small. They waited. And then they saw the light of a flashlight and then it crossed almost over them. The man started to cough again and again and again. He murmured. He grumbled. He said, “Forget this.” And then he walked off sounding sick and exhausted.

They were alone again. They were breathing again. They stood from where they’d hidden themselves. Scarlet whispered, “He might come back around.”

But Jeanie had turned around. She was looking into the glass divider. She took Scarlet’s hand. She squeezed it. Scarlet turned and saw what her roommate saw. They reached back and started to move from where they were. The big cat was at the glass. It was seated. It was higher up than they were. It was watching them move away. In the darkness the yellow of its eyes were beams of energy. They were deep disks of yellow. They were unblinking. They glowed there.

They watched the big cat get up. It walked slowly against the glass. It stopped and then walked slowly back to where it had been. It dipped its head and slid along until it stopped and then it sat again. It watched. And Scarlet and Jeanie watched. And soon the sounds of the night grew more and more active and alive and filled with the songs of those who want to go where they want to go. To return to where they belong. 

Calder G. Lorenz is the author of One Way Down (Or Another), his debut novel from Civil Coping Mechanisms.

His writing can be found in sPARKLE & bLINK 2.4, Switchback, Curly Red Stories, FictionDaily, Two Dollar Radio's Noise, Literary Orphans, Crack the Spine, Black Heart Magazine, Litro Magazine, The Forge Literary, The Birds Piled Loosely, New Pop Lit, Devil's Lake, bad pony Magazine, Chicago Literati, and gravel.

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